What’s Sophia Wang – a literature PhD who studied experimental American poetry at UC Berkeley and helms her own punk rock dance company – doing running a biotech start-up that harnesses the power of funghi? Perhaps it’s worth turning to Sylvia Plath for answers. “We shall by morning / Inherit the earth. / Our foot’s in the door,” read the closing lines of her 1960 poem Mushrooms.
“Plath is oracular in her observations,” says Wang, when we meet on Zoom to discuss MycoWorks, the company she co-founded with the artist Philip Ross in 2013. If it hasn’t inherited the earth just yet, MycoWorks certainly made headlines in the fashion world in March when it announced a collaboration with Hermès on the creation of Sylvania, a new premium, natural material grown from mycelium, the threadlike network of filaments in fungus. Using MycoWorks’s patented Fine Mycelium technology, Sylvania will feature in Hermès’s reimagined Victoria bag alongside calfskin and canvas elements when it debuts in late 2021.
This is a big deal. Hermès is a heritage brand built on exquisite leather craftsmanship. That it was willing to spend three years working with MycoWorks on an alternative suggests that the California-based start-up has epic, or at least poetic, potential. Indeed, so-called “mushroom leather”, which should really be known as mycelium leather, is the current front-runner in the fashion industry’s scramble to find a viable, ethical, non-plastic, low-carbon alternative to animal leather that is also biodegradeable. Note the quotation marks. Though Sylvania and MycoWork’s flagship product, Reishi, is categorically not leather, it feels and looks like it – and that’s good news for the fashion industry.
“If you think of the triple-helix collagen structure of an animal hide, mycelium has a three-dimensional network structure that we’re also working with that gives it its strength,” explains Wang. In the case of Sylvania, Wang describes it as “a refined and supple material, with a surprisingly plump and slightly springy hand. It has incredible softness and pairs beautifully with [Hermès’s] existing leathers and textiles.” Wang first came across mycelium in 2007, when her co-founder Ross was using it to create sculptures. Where it differs from traditional leather is in its potential for customisation and fine-tuning. “We have an entirely traceable growth process … so we can offer brands immense flexibility in terms of customisation of thickness, dimension, surface feature,” says Wang.